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In our recent book, Revolt on the Right, we compiled a list of the most demographically receptive seats in the country for Ukip. This allowed us to rank all seats in the country according to how favourable their populations are for Ukip, using the most recent census data.

The ideal seats for Ukip share key characteristics: they have lots of ‘left behind’ voters who we also know from our research are the most receptive to Ukip and its policies. These ideal seats also have very low numbers of voters who have, instead, tended to remain resistant to Ukip, including university graduates, ethnic minorities and people in professional and economically secure occupations. This is a useful first exercise in filtering through all seats to find those where – if Ukip stood a strong candidate and knocked on plenty of doors – they would probably find the most voters receptive to their message.

What we are not saying is that Ukip will enjoy strong support in all of these seats. It might be that they do not target these seats, or the local Labour MP has a formidable majority, or a strong local profile, making a Ukip insurgency unlikely. In order to find seats that Ukip actually has a chance of winning, you would need to look at both demography and the local political context, such as whether the vote is split across three parties, whether Ukip is targeting the seat and has been recruiting support through local elections.

Take the seat of Knowsley as an example. This is the 5th most Ukip-friendly seat in the country. But it will be incredibly difficult for Ukip to win the seat because of the very large Labour majority of over 25,000. In fact, even whilst most of the most demographically favourable seats for Ukip have Labour incumbents they are often protected by large majorities.

The most potent Ukip challenges to Labour come in seats such as Great Grimsby, where the radical right insurgents have already put in strong local showings, and the local Labour Party has a smaller majority to fall back on.

However, even a large majority may not provide total safety from a strong local Ukip candidate. Clacton was the number one most Ukip favourable seat on our measures prior to Douglas Carswell’s defection. His strong local profile certainly contributes to his apparent ability to bring most Conservative voters with him to his new party, but so, no doubt, do their sympathies for his new party.

While Labour MPs in the safe seats near the top of this list would be unlikely to jump ship, the overnight disappearance of a 12,000 vote Conservative majority in Clacton should give them pause. Their seats have almost as many voters from UKIP sympathising groups as Douglas Carswell’s has.

UKIP don’t have enough people on the ground to knock on enough doors in any given constituency. They have no voter ID records – subsequently they just ‘blindly’ canvass an entire area. In other words, they have no targeting strategy whatsoever. Furthermore, they are completely disorganised and amateurish when it comes to harnessing postal votes and as Carswell’s defection makes clear – politically, they are like a Thatcherite tribute band.

These people make a good living from making idiotic speculations about the result of the next general election. Nice work if you can get it. Of course they’ve never knocked on an actual door in the course of an election campaign in their lives, nor do they seem to understand how election campaigns are actually fought on the ground.

DDpp

They knocked on my door in Rochester, Kent..

PoundInYourPocket

I think it depends where you live. In the council elections in my area the Kippers were mainly Tory defectors and seemed to carry across a cohort of ex-tory door-knockers. Others were loners but very determined to make their sad way right around the ward. Presumably these councillors and supporters will be the ground troops next May and could almost match the Labour ground army in areas where CLPs are neglected. I wouldn’t underestimate the Kippers ability to pester and hound the voters and their funding levels that outstripped ours (I hadn’t heard a loud-hailer van since the 70’s – but the Kippers had them). Just a thought – I bet the ex-Tory Kippers purloined the Tory’s voter ID data as well.

Dave Roberts

It also depends on whether or not Labour in particular can turn out te troops. I known it was because of Livingstone but in London, the east in particular, Labour members just refused to canvass in the last mayoral elections.

PoundInYourPocket

OK – I’m in the abandoned north and don’t follow London politics. Why is Livingston so viciously despised by so many Londoners ? I’ve always agreed with his views as far I’ve heard them – what is it that drives Londoners so mental about this chap ? From a distance I thought he’d been an effective mayor, improving transport and infrastructure. He keeps newts as well – can’t be so bad can he ?

Bob Dawkins

What the hell would anyone expect to achieve voting labour anyway. No… I’m not talking about other parties, leave them out of this, because all labour do is talk about who not to vote for, and never give a single dammed even half reason why anyone should vote for them. They are absolutely pathetic….

Guest

Of course you are. You are talking about your opposition to democracy again, as you spew partisan nonsense – far right partisan nonsense..

I’m not even a Labourite, but evidently pathetic is about the level of your invocations to Satan, Stan or Dear Leader, whichever, you keep making as you make it plain you can’t understand any other viewpoint.

girlguide

They were the ONLY party that knocked on our door in the last council election, and I live in one of the constituencies listed above. A political party that takes a vote for granted, doesn’t deserve that vote.

It’s been reported (on the rotherhampolitics website) that Maltby Town Council Chairman Jonathan Carratt has defected to UKIP from Labour.

How many more will follow?

BillFrancisOConnor

Like you Doug, they’ve got a crystal ball.

Hugh

What have they predicted in the above?

MikeHomfray

Very few given there is no ideological compatibility between the two parties

Nick London

i wouldn’t be so sure. they are after the white working class vote. the same people who voted for thatcher, and who now look at rotherham and think: what is the point of labour? .

Guest

Look at UK polling report tabs. No, UKIP is not a major issue for Labour, far from it.

The problem Labour has is it is refusing to speak for the left, who are disproportionately working class. Labour keep bleeding votes even now when they step right…

Nick London

Depends what you mean by “right” I guess. Plenty of socially conservative labour voters still. Worried about immigration and race issues in particular. They are not racists, just worried for their communities. We have to find a way of dealing with their issues. As Rotherham et al show – their concerns are real, and valid. If we ignore their concerns we cede ground to racists like bnp, stoking racism for the future.

Guest

Appeasing the far right is not a good idea.

That you’re fixated on race issues,and hence talking about at best Jim Crow…

Nick London

Talking about a key issue for the working class in this country, particularly in light of recent events, is neither a step to the right nor a fixation. To treat it as either ignores that there is real suffering going on under labour (and other) councils and labour have simply failed to deal with it, and rather demonstrates the inability of some to appreciate why working class people may be seduced by parties who talk about the issue rather than avoid it.

Bob Dawkins

Yea,.. That or…. Just face the facts that labour are on a fast, slippery slope out of here 🙂 Miliband as leader??? need I go on?
No option of EU debating, full scale 100% foreign dictatorship, no possible future exit… More???? The biggest full scale pedo ring known in the history of politics…. Support of many illegal activities, including terrorism….. I could go on all night in fact. No way in hell will the next elections contain any support for labour. People would literally have to be either insane, or sick.

Guest

Blah blah Labour will be destroyed. I’m not a Labourite, I simply oppose your anti-democratic plans, and your plans for your ring of pedos, your foreign bankers you want to control the UK – i.e. UKIP..

I’m sure you can go all night. But Satan will make sure, for you, that no democracy will be allowed, so right. Any other views to yours are “insane, or sick”, as you talk about your Jihad.

Bob Dawkins

Jihad? Lol I. Simply ask that we check people moving to UK are not serial killers that’s all. I ask that we stop wasting 55 million a day, to fund an EU dictatorship, and use that money to educate our very uneducated country, to improve schools in general and to support the broken NHS. I ask that LibLabCon stand down and make way for a government who respects the people. 🙂 the government is not formed to dictate to the people, a government is formed to hear those people’s cries and support their needs. UK is a very tolerant and charitable country, it’s people always supporting he 3rd world’s, and working on personal projects to help make the world (not just Europe) a better place.

I ask that we are not controlleemand dictated too by unknown, unelected and now extremely hated, foreign eu dillusionists. The people should elect who they wish to have speak for them, and that for the first time is what’s happening right now. There is no force here…
There is no pressure here…
All that can be found, is a glorious, bright door of opportunity. The people have not taken a gamble before, because the governments have made it clear, that it’s peasants were too illiterate to think for themselves…

Those peasants have woke up, and they are rising.
But they don’t rise wielding pitchforks, torches and signposts of demands…. Thy rise smiling and saying, please give us our freedom back. Freedom is democracy, a safety net for all those within.

I don’t like the line charity begins at home at all, and believe people should always give no matter what they have…. It will always be more than your neighbour.
But when it comes to doing things sensibly, ukip is for fact, the peaceful choice here. Things will be OK, I can assure you. Just smile, take each day as it comes, and support the peace, which is ukip. Turn off the tvs, stop buying the bias newspapers, don’t judge… Ask and youn shall find.

Ralph Miliband, Blair, Ed Miliband, Cameron, Clegg, etc.. “A nation can survive its fools and and even the ambitious but it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable… The traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself… He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.” (Cicero) – too many have come dictating what will be good for us… all have had a chance to prove themselves… all have miserably failed. The future is now reliant on a fresh new opportunity and potential freedom, in the form of a new revolution. Ukip.

Doug Smith

It is the ideological compatibility between Labour and the Tories that is the issue.

Other political parties will move in now that Labour has given up on ordinary people.

John David Turner

Is Mr Mason a Labour Party member?

Tubby_Isaacs

Sure, but those Labour bosses can look at polling with the best of them.

Dave Roberts

You still don’t understand what is going on. It’s not about left versus right any more or lifelong Tory voters compared to lifelong Labour voters. Something very different is happening.

Tubby_Isaacs

So you don’t think a general election campaign would show up UKIP to be uber-Thatcherite?

David Lewis

A huge proportion of the country certainly hopes so from what i can see. That I think is the whole point..

Dave Roberts

Can you explain that because I have no idea what you are talking about? Do you think that the shift by essentially former Labour voters will all of a sudden be reversed by a general election campaign? In spit of everything that the media and the maIn-stream political parties have thrown at UKIP they are thriving.

Tubby_Isaacs

So far UKIP have hurt the Tories far more. Labour have (for smart tactical reasons) not attacked them much.

Post-Rotherham, people are making big assumptions of much more Labour support going to UKIP. I don’t think anything like that should happen nationwide. The only UKIP people anyone will know will be Farage and Carswell (who will win his by-election). They’re very easy to show up as worse than the Tories.

PoundInYourPocket

Take a look at the rise of UKIP in the solid Labour northern towns such as Rotherham, Hartlepool, Doncaster, Sunderland etc. They appeal to those that would have been old labour many moons ago. As Dave Roberts says above it’s not just economic left/right it’s who you identify with, who speaks your language, who you trust, who sounds more believable. Working class people voted for Thatcher knowing exactly what they would do and they did so in droves. There’s no reason why they won’t flock to UKIP no matter how “uber-thatcherite” they are if they feel Labour, like callaghan in 79, are a redundant force.

Guest

So the right wing minority of the working class will keep voting for the right? Yes, they will.

This does not mean Labour needs to move right.

Bob Dawkins

If you are left or right of the center… You’re off balance sir. Ukip is the first genuine Liberal party to ever exist in UK. It is the union of the left and right scale at the heart of politics. Those interested in debating and compromise. That is why ukip are continuing to rise. No more will labour and Tories stay in separate divisions, with their extremist opinions. Ukip has both parties, nicely trickling in peacefully to try and find resolution together. It is the party of freedom, compromise and of the people. Vote ukip.

Guest

So you’re far right and hence “off balance”. UKIP is highly illiberal, vulgar libertarian in fgact.

You are being fundamentally dishonest, lying about your views, it’s a cult of personality which is against any kind of debate or compromise, and it’s not “rising”, the polls are quite clear.

You are the extremist, even as you ignore the fact you’ve shifted politics towards your extremism. You are fighting freedom, you are trying to impose your views and you are of the 1%’s “people”, for controlling Britain for their profit and a very narrow ideology.

Vote for UKIP’s Jihad!

Bob Dawkins

Bless you.

Sounds like you need help, or a cuddle.
(not from me) 🙂

Smile, youre moving towards a more peaceful time soon. Things sometimes have to get worse before they get better, but 3 mps in a couple of weeks is evident enough that the people are waking to the truth. He tory party is now sinking like titanic. Join in the celebrations sir, the best is yet to come. It’s not just the mps or supporters, there’s plenty more surprises coming shortly, you’ll see!

Please, please please…. We are on your side brother.
Vote ukip.

Bob Dawkins

Bet you regret writing that since the many recent defects, including 2 Tories, the great grand son whom was the co-founder of labour party, and literally a check list of other labour and Tory mps waiting for the right time to make the cross over 🙂
Ukip are going to absolutely storm 2015!!!! Vote ukip! Support UKs future and stop LibLabConEU from dictating away our freedom!!!!

Guest

Magical checklists!
No, some of the Tory right have moved over.

You are opposing freedom, anti-trade..closing the borders like NK, etc.

Guest

Of course you don’t, you don’t read people’s posts, just spew propaganda, and say “and in English” over and over to them.

As you talk about trends which are not in the polls, only in your propaganda, as you frantically defend UKIP…

John David Turner

Indeed! Vote ukip to live and work in sweatshop Britain with lower pay and poorer terms and conditions!

Dave Roberts

Then tell that to the former Labour voters who are probably going to vote UKIP in droves instead of patronising them.

John David Turner

How I am patronising someone by observing that they are being gulled?

You only have to look at ukip’s smoke and mirrors Income Tax cut for those on the National Minimum Wage to see they are trying to sell people a pup. Particularly as ukip policy proposals including scrapping the NMW, the Social Chapter and Health and Safety laws.

Guest

The ones you make up, right, the magical “droves” (for which there is no polling evidence), but for whom you claim labour must move sharply right again, disenfranchising even centralists…

Bob Dawkins

No you still don’t quite get it…. Labour government are the problem!!! They are whose selling us out to foreign dictatorship, ukip are the only solution. By May 2015, most of the country will be supporting ukip. Im so proud to say, u used to know many labour voters, 5 degree level lecturers of universities, theology, foreign languages and quantum physics to be precise… These have always Been intellectual labour supporters up till around 5 years ago when labour went out, ukip came and started gradually exposing the truth about LibLabCon over many public and private debates. The people worked together, and justice is forever drawing nearer. Vote ukip, and we will have a guaranteed peaceful, inspirational and democratic country once more, just as before the eu dictatorship came. LibLabCon will all guarantee us the same results, and they are grim…. Very, very grim…

Guest

Yes yes, all other parties are the problem and must be exterminated. It’s the usual, you want a dictatorship – so you try and blame the Other, the foreigner, as usual, when you’re the ones interested in a Coup.

You will vote rig, you will intimidate, etc. – you see youtube vids as more than propaganda nonsense, as you lie repeatedly and try and end democracy. You’ll end the courts, and ban every other party, right.

You’ll guarantee war, you’ll ban all creativity, you’ll ban democracy and have your narrow views as the only acceptable ones (like the USSR), as you fight desperately against the organisations which have upheld basic rights for Britain’s people.

Of course you see an economy and democracy as grim. They don’t go with your plans. For the peons – as you see as the British.

Guest

No, your far right propaganda is always the same. Your right are trying to change the last centralist parties to the right, same old, same old.

UK Polling Report tabs show it’s not working, and you’re getting desperate it seems, as you more and more openly call for appeasement.

John David Turner

Labour vote only went down 4% points in Rotherham in the local authority elections as against last Parliamentary Election. ukip’s meteoric rise down to no shows by BNP and EDL and collapse of Respect.

Tubby_Isaacs

Maltby Town Council?

Think we need to see at least District or County Councillors, don’t we?

MikeHomfray

Sceptical. Geography makes a difference. And these academics seem to be cheerleaders for Ukip

BillFrancisOConnor

Yup. While on the way to self publicity and, of course, the bank.

John David Turner

Only in the World of Goodwin Fantasy Politics would three year old Census data and sweeping generalisations about how socio-economic groups vote be deployed in such a way.

Hugh

Much of their other work has been on the appeal of the far rigth in the UK and abroad. Does that make them cheerleaders for BNP? Of course they might be wrong, but there analysis seems fairly sophisticated, so I don’t think “geography makes a difference” really rebuts it. Looks like shooting the messanger.

Dave Roberts

The BNP is finished, too closely associated with fascism. This is something different.

John David Turner

Depends on your definition of sophisticated. They interviewed not even one ukip voter or supporter in writing their book.

Best not to let messy reality get in the way of cosy chats with ukip activists (some off the record), opinion poll data and newspaper clippings?

reformist lickspittle

Actually, their “analysis” is highly one-dimensional and simplistic – and is absurdly reliant on demographics above all other factors.

But let’s not bother the trolls here with facts, eh?

Hugh

I’m pretty sure that’s an opinion, not a fact. The fact that it is a list of “the most demographically receptive seats in the country for Ukip” possibly explains the “absurd” reliance on demographics.

You also seem to have entirely ignored this:

“This is a useful first exercise in filtering through all seats to find
those where – if Ukip stood a strong candidate and knocked on plenty of
doors – they would probably find the most voters receptive to their
message.
“What we are not saying is that Ukip will enjoy strong support in all of
these seats. It might be that they do not target these seats, or the
local Labour MP has a formidable majority, or a strong local profile,
making a Ukip insurgency unlikely. In order to find seats that Ukip
actually has a chance of winning, you would need to look at both demography
and the local political context, such as whether the vote is split
across three parties, whether Ukip is targeting the seat and has been
recruiting support through local elections.”

reformist lickspittle

So what is the point of such a misleading “list” at all??

Apart from plugging their book, of course…….

Hugh

Well, I guess the point is that it’s a useful first exercise in finding those seats where UKIP would probably find voters most receptive to their message. You could then, er, combine this with a look at the local political context to see where UKIP’s vote might be worth watching.

Jack Fate

quite a few Welsh seats, but no Scottish. I would have assumed given their little englander mentality they would be as shambolic in Wales as in Scotland.
In Scotland they make a clear appeal to the Scottish loyalism and the Orange Order

They won their first Scottish MEP seat in the May European Elections …

Jack Fate

I know. My point being that this analysis shows them not being in the running for any Scottish seat. The turnout in a general election minimises any risk of them affecting outcome of a seat in Scotland

Tubby_Isaacs

Their Welsh MEP has made a fool of himself already.

He’ll probably be, after Farage and Carswell, the UKIP politician they know best.

itdoesntaddup

There is an important column of data missing from this presentation: the turnout figures. Nationally, UKIP have been drawing around 20% of their vote from NOTAs. That adds up to a lot of potential votes among disaffected voters who can’t see a point in voting Labour, or for any other established party. Even so, it’s very hard to see Blaenau or Rhondda turning purple despite the supposed demographic.

John David Turner

20% of 27% of 33% of the electorate in the one election that they are always expected to do well in?

jaime taurosangastre candelas

You read the data differently than I read it. NOTAs would presumably be drawn from the 35-40% who fail to vote, so perhaps 7.5-8% of the total electorate. If they are now UKIP supporters, they are very likely to vote.

This could translate into an increased turnout, with UKIP gaining 7.5% as a proportion of the electorate just from previous NOTAs, and so about 10% of the total poll, without counting any other previous parties’ switchers to UKIP.

I make no comment on the data itself, as I do not have it, but merely your interpretation of it.

John David Turner

You are assuming, as Goodwin does, that the Euro Election results are valid ones to project on to a General Election.

ukip got 27% of the vote on a turnout of 33% of the electorate. 20% of 27% is 5.4%. The 5.4% projection at a General Election only stands up if ukip gets 27% of the vote cast in a General Election, when the turnout is likely to be 66% across the country; ukip will finally have had to agree on some policies and face much greater scruting than it did last May.

I do not think that even Goodwin is predicting 27% of the votes cast next May going to ukip.

jaime taurosangastre candelas

I am assuming (if the source analysis of 20% are previous NOTAs is correct, I have not access to the data or analysis), then applying that to the more normal 60-65% GE turnouts. Of course, now both of us are hypothesising.

But whether your lower figure is right, or my higher one, it could still be a significant factor in tight or marginal constituencies.

John David Turner

Figures I have seen quoted elsewhere are as low as 3%. Goodwin prefers to use Euro Election results because they flatter ukip’s vote.

In Rotherham, for example, he ignores the Local Authority votes cast that day which contradict his projections for the seat. In other words, people vote differently, depending on the type of election.

Goodwin ignores such factors when it suits him, it seems.

Guest

And there’s even more NOTA’s who are to the left.

dave244

You still don’t get do you the Tory’s are a party in melt down the Lib-Dems have never been so unpopular and yet the best that the Labour party can do is a 2/3% lead all any of the main parties can do is offer reasons why voters should not vote for UKIP not why they should vote for them.
Will UKIP do well in may i doubt it but what they are doing is building support and they will continue in building more support and the only way to stop them is to address the real concerns that people have and not with a few token gestures what people really want is some honesty, the one thing Politics ought to be above all else is honest but unfortunately it’s not it’s full of spin and half truths and when that fails, lies.
And as for who will win in may most people don’t care, why for them it will be business as usual professional politicians who have no idea what life is like outside of the Westminster village and all the same out of touch, self centered, shallow and opportunistic.

John David Turner

Some of ukip’s left behind supporters and voters are unemployable; dole scroungers; people who think ethnic minorities, get more benefits than they do and that the world is biased in the favour of everyone else, except the white ‘working’ man and so on.

How do you address their interests?

Tubby_Isaacs

The 2-3% lead is all Labour need.

The Tory meltdown hasn’t happened yet, if it happens at all. They are one of the most successful parties in the world for a good reason.

dave244

2-3% lead won’t Labour give an overall majority and the Tory meltdown is happening not so much in Westminster at the moment but grass root support is going and as more M.P,s wake up to what is happening that is when it will start in Westminster M.P,s on all sides of the house in Westminster know they have lost the trust of the people and they have no ideal how to get it back

Leon Wolfeson

And yet Labour are still looking at losing at present trends.

It’s not UKIP – who are, per polling tabs, taking mostly from the Tories. No, it’s that Labour keep moving right and giving people no reason to vote at all.

Bob Dawkins

Its not about Left and right anymore…. Times have moved on…. It’s about Right and wrong. Vote ukip.

Leon Wolfeson

You are trying to be dishonest about the basis of your views, no more, as you rail against democracy and make it plain that you are completely the wrong option.

But as for making this my last vote… Well let’s hope so… That’s the intention, that finally when we rid our country of LibLabCon, it will be forever, and the eu unelecteds go back home to find real jobs, then yes hopefully voting ukip will be a perment vote which unlike LibLabCon, ukip will keep on giving, keep on supporting the country, and is the union of all parties and people in one place.

You see when we have control of our own home again. There will be peace I promise you! I am a Liberal voter, (no not lib dems – consider them already non existent) but a centralised supporter of all opinions and values. We have the Tories and Labour supporters uniting for the first time ever! This would be impossible, as proven for years and years of conflict, disagreement and protests against each other. Ukip has come between all this, said let the governments say what they like, but be their personal ant-farm project no more… Ukip gives power back to the people, and it’s not aggressive power no, this is peace. To be heard instead of screaming across a battlefield of diverse opinions. Finally ukip can be that bridge of union. Ukip has single handily shaken up the whole political establishment, expressing that we people should be ignored no longer! We have been patient and tolerant, but ukip to power could prevent UKs future chaos of civil war, after the eu dictatorship threatens to control us to the point of not being able to breathe without permission.

It’s in your best interests too sir please don’t be so negative!
Ukip is going to give you a beautiful, peaceful future. Try not to snub this gift, it’s a once in a lifetime offer, and it’s right now. Vote ukip

Guest

The British already are in control. You are talking about an anti-democratic coup.

You’re talking about jobs created by trade as “unelecteds”, as you talk about never allowing another vote if you seize power. You “promise” peace, by engaging in a war on Britain, as you talk about your illiberal views. You want to strip basic rights, in a savage assault. You would see the Union end, very rapidly – in violence if you wouldn’t otherwise allow it.

You’ve caused very harmful rightwards movement, hurting Britain’s economy and attacking rights – a preview of your plans. You are determined to cause civil war and strife, you are the aggressors, and you’re all about people being dead so they don’t need to breath in the first place, UKIP’s cultural imperialism is all about very tight controls on what is “acceptable” – one faith, one set of very limited morals, etc.

I am being positive by opposing your Jihad. And again you state it’s the only vote you’ll allow, vote against Britain.

jeanshaw

I think one of the problems is that the Labour leadership is being perceived as more and more out of touch with its core voters — immigration, lack of social housing , continued decline in living standards and real wages, pressure on school places are all issues on which Miliband has nothing realistic to say because most are related directly to membership of the EU and he resolutely refuses to discuss it.

dave244

This is why immigration is such a thorny issue the last Brown/Blair Governments refused to discuss immigration calling anyone who asked if they had the right policy a racist as the Gordon Brown Gillian Duffy incident showed.
So now trust in the Government and the opposition is now at a all time low so no matter how many assurances they give or policy’s they bring out a majority of people simply no longer believe them

Tubby_Isaacs

“This is why immigration is such a thorny issue the last Brown/Blair Governments refused to discuss immigration calling anyone who asked if they had the right policy a racist as the Gordon Brown Gillian Duffy incident showed.”

Immigration was Michael Howard’s biggest topic at 2005. How could they have got through the election in 2005 by refusing to discuss it?

Amazingly, immigration policy is pretty much the same now as then.

dave244

If you look at immigration policy adopted by last Brown/Blair Governments it was rightly or wrongly scene as a open door policy i personally think we need a level immigration but because Brown/Blair Governments refused to discuss or explain their immigration policy this is what lead to a lot of mistrust.
And then when you throw in Clegg and tuition fees episode, Blair and the dodgy dossier, Cameron and the so called cast iron guarantee plus Brown broke his promise on a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and then on top of that the expenses scandal which still comes back every so often as i have said here and else where it’s about trust and that is in very short supply

John David Turner

All these workers recruited from within EU were not recruited by the Government. Why do businesses not want to recruit ukip’s left behind supporters and voters?

Tubby_Isaacs

I agree all parties have breached trust. But the chance of UKIP being the first one that didn’t break promises is pretty low. It’s even changed its immigration policy fairly recently, and its flat tax policy is likely to go the same way.

Immigration is basically 4 sorts

1) EU
2) Family
3) Asylum
4) Skilled

I wonder how much of each it could actually reduce.

Guest

You missed 5) Student, which has an very small stay-on rate, and provides a lot of cash to the country, but is being hammered heavily by the politicians for ideological reasons.

Quite a few other countries don’t even COUNT them in immigration statistics!

John David Turner

Duffy was a racist who claimed to vote Labour.

Dave Roberts

She was a lifelong Labour voter concerned about immigration and the racist smear just doesn’t work any more.

John David Turner

We have a secret ballot so who knows how she votes and embarrassingly Labour supporters and even some party members are racist (as are quite a few of ukip’s activists, supporters and voters).

jaime taurosangastre candelas

If you read the transcript of what she actually said, what was racist about it? The contentious piece is her asking “where are all these Eastern Europeans flocking from?”, to which the reply Gordon Brown should have said “Eastern Europe”. There is nothing else in the transcript that could even remotely be thought of as racist.

John David Turner

That transcripts do not refer to tone of voice and body language?

jaime taurosangastre candelas

Well, I did not at the time form the impression that she was racist when the event was shown on the TV news, but we all probably interpret body language differently, so you may differ from me. As I recall, she was shopping for bread, so it was unplanned. I still do not think she is a racist, I think that she may accurately reflect the concerns of her social group, which should be a concern for Labour who do (in my opinion) rather take the northern white working class for granted.

Of course, before the Bill Francis O’Connor demands evidence for my beliefs, my only knowledge of the white working class is seven years living in Darlington, and that is now ten years ago.

John David Turner

47 years, man and boy (as I come from the white working class). I grew up with the group ukip is attracting, I live alongside them and I have interviewed 100s of them.

They are not the white working class, at least in part, they are social and economic luddites. They define the working class as white, unskilled males whereas most people include at least women and BEMs of both sexes who undertake work of an unskilled, semi and skilled nature. They set their face against education and training, some even deride those who use it to improve their lot are worthy of derision. Some of them form that tiny minority who commit benefit fraud and scrounge off their fellow members of the working class.

They are holding out for well paid jobs in manufacturing requiring minimal intellectual input on their behalf. They think a job will just fall into their lap. They think that the playing field of life is tilted in the favour of everybody else. They think Equal Opprtunities legislation does not protect their rights. They think that a woman’s place is in the home. Some even think that if they were BEM they would get more benefits than the publicised rates that they receive and so on …

It is an insult to the working class to say these people stand for the working class. If they want to vote for ukip and lose the hard earnt rights of the working class then they not just insulting the working class, but betraying it. As for the mainstream parties, who was it that passed the NMW, H&S legislation, incorporated the Social Chapter and ECHR into UK law, trades union rights, Equalities Act, Equal Pay Act and so on. If passing them is not a recognition of the needs of the working class, the real working class then what is?

ukip’s Councillors, their fruitcakes represent this particular strand of ukip’s support to a tee.

“How can wealth persuade poverty to use its
political freedom to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of
Conservative politics in the twentieth century.” Aneurin Bevan. ukip have learnt at the knees of the experts, but then, oh, which party have so many of them come from?

50% of ukip’s support came from ex Tories in May, 16% from ex Liberal Democrats and only 15% from ex Labour voters. As the turnout has been going down, we do not know where these non voters have come from or for whom they used to vote, assuming they did.

As a Civil Servant of 27 years experience, I know all about the dangers of speculating without data and then acting on those speculations. I was a DWP staffer, interviewed 1,000s in Jobcentres; a Labour Market Expert; a Socio-Economic Regeneration Expert; a bid appraiser and a statistics expert, Census and NOMIS. And that taught me that data is a starting not an end point and Goodwin has not interviewed one person about whose voting intentions he pontificates!

Tubby_Isaacs

I think she was a bit of a ranter more than anything in her meeting with brown. Talking of Eastern Europeans “flocking in” wasn’t great, but she was also concerned about other issues like tuition fees. We all know people like her, and like them overall.

I wouldn’t call her a racist- more someone who’s just picked up the general tone on Eastern Europeans. I can see how someone might think she was though.

Guest

It’s always the same, can’t discuss your far right views, because it’s “racist”. You’re just out to suppress discussion at all costs, and to move Labour right to share your views.

John David Turner

Really? So it is not businessmen, like ukip’s backers and many of its small business MEPs who set pay rates in their own businesses?

Guest

Precisely one of those, immigration (around which there are many myths) is associated with the EU.

The rest are associated with the failed domestic policies of both Labour and the Tories. Ed has nothing so say because he will continue with them, there’s no real difference between the parties on then.

Absolute trash; at best a gratuitous abuse of statistics, and I’d rather not say what it is at worst…

Why is Labourlist giving this nonsense any attention?

reformist lickspittle

Knowsley one of the best UKIP prospects in the country, eh??

Only one possible response there – LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.

Chrisso

They explain in the article above why in practice Knowsley isn’t a good Ukip prospect. But Great Grimsby is.

reformist lickspittle

Yes, I saw that.

The point is, it is more than just the size of the Labour majority (though that does actually exist for, you know, actual reasons) that mean it isn’t a good prospect for them.

And, almost certainly, never will be.

treborc1

UKIP in Llanelli against Nia Griffiths, they do not have a hope in hell if Nia was to lose and she has been leaking voters of late
, it would be Plaid that takes the seat not UKIP

Guest

Because some parts of Labour seems to feel a need to keep moving right for some reason.

UK Polling Report tabs tell a very different story to the article.

Anne McCormack

Having campaigned in St Helens North and South this analysis is utter tosh. Do you ever speak to voters in these constituencies?

John David Turner

They did not interview one voter or supporter for their book, just party activists.

BillFrancisOConnor

How much have they made from writing this rubbish?

John David Turner

I do not know, but the spin offs, like newspaper columns etc do not hinder the sales of the book.

Like the Fat Boy in the Pickwick Papers, Goodwin likes to make our flesh creep!

reformist lickspittle

“If the facts do not conform to the theory, then they must be disposed of”.

🙂

robertcp

I really doubt that the many South Wales seats in the list would ever vote for a UKIP MP. South Wales is a very different place to South East England..

Tubby_Isaacs

And UKIP’s Welsh MEP is making a fool of himself.

robertcp

Why am I not surprised?

reformist lickspittle

Not as much as you hope, I suspect.

Robert Basset

“left behind”

Not so subtle smear attempt on UKIP supporters in this age of image and spin, hoping to put off a few of the more impressionable voters by making out that UKIP are “old”.

Utter drivel.

Guest

*looks at the stats*

So basically, not a significant threat and you need not to pander to them?

Guest

Populist, not popular. Moreover, you’re utterly ignoring Labour of course, as you lash out frantically against democracy, throwing arround PC bigotry in a witch hunt against invisible, magical socialism, against anyone not of your views.

You label, you mark, you need feel “deprived” and oppose Britain and it’s values.

andyrwebman

How interesting it would be to move to a national “one man, one vote” system.

David Robbins

I think they will come a strong second in a lot of Labour held seats. I intend to vote UKIP in Durham North West seat. Labour have betrayed the working class in recent years.

David Robbins

With polls as they are Labour and Tory will have around the same number of seats, about 275-280 each and the SNP may get as many as 55 out of the 59 Scottish seats and the Lib Dems about 19. It will either be a Tory/SNP or Lab/SNP government or more likely a minorty government and we will be back to the polls in 6 months or so.